Tag: slumps

You just don’t feel like going for a run, but you know you should, so you push yourself out the door anyway. But once you’re there, it’s a drag. You’re not enjoying it. Your legs feel heavy. Your heart isn’t joyful. You just want to stop, and maybe you do and walk for a while, or cut it short and head home.

Many, if not most, of us have been there. When you run as much as we do, it’s pretty inevitable you’ll reach a point when running just isn’t fun. Maybe it’s just for a day, maybe it’s for a period of time after a big race or maybe it’s a longer-term slump when you’re not training. What to do? Should you spice up your training? Change your strategy? Sign up for a race?

I recently had an insight that these running slumps are a sign that something is out of balance, and although it’s a stretch, I thought maybe I could help myself by thinking about levers. Teeter-totters. See-saws, if you will.Read more >>

The past year of running has presented a number of mental and physical roadblocks for me. I’ve dealt with injuries, thyroid problems, shoe drama, and a general decline in my running performance. My current marathon training cycle is following that trend as well, and the mental fatigue that comes along with gutting through run after run is wearing me down. During a recent Really. Bad.Run. I realized that my current relationship with running bears a striking resemblance to the ups and downs of an actual romantic relationship — and man, is it complicated.Read more >>

Perusing women’s running logs, blogs, or social media posts on the internet, one might be left with the impression that constantly training at a high-level is the norm. All of these impressive women with day jobs, blogs, normal lives, and adorable, well-adjusted children somehow manage to fit in 50-plus mile training weeks year-round, while nabbing PR after PR in race after race.

But is that reality? And even if it is reality for some women, does it need to be your reality? And is it the best approach for you? Must we always be in a state of serious training to really be runners, or does running for fun and fitness have its place, too?

“Just four more weeks and I’ll be on the start line, and I won’t feel this bad!” I said to myself once a minute during every run last week.

But four weeks is a long time and I am so so tired. There are some days, even a week or two stretch during the throes of training that make me want to chuck my trainers into Green Lake and call it a day. This is The Marathon Training Gauntlet, a two to three week period during a marathon training cycle where every run feels like a marathon itself. My coach lovingly refers to it as “a bitch-of-a-three-week stretch.” I just call it hell, and for a fleeting moment I feel like a crazy person who decided to put my body through the ringer just to attempt to run fast.

The Marathon Training Gauntlet typically creeps up during peak training volume weeks, when you’re feeling more tired than usual, and usually after a particularly hard run. The lack of motivation to run when you have a big goal isn’t the easiest topic to broach when your Facebook feed is chockfull of friends posting awesome workouts, running personal bests, and gleefully proclaiming their love of running. Yes, it is great, but during the MTG we are tired. If this sounds like something you can relate to, here are my tips to getting on the other side. Read more >>

Lately I’ve been obsessing over sand mandalas. If you live in a big city or have visited a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, you may have even watched one as it was created. Mandalas are those really cool rosettes made of brightly colored sand that employ the use of various Buddhist imagery, created by monks in orange robes hunched over little sticks they rub together to create each tiny line. They’re hypnotically beautiful and reassuring to me, and I can’t get enough of them. I watch videos on YouTube when I’m stressed or if I can’t figure something out, or even if I can’t sleep.

Much like Cilantro discussed here yesterday, I’m going through a period of transition, changing cities, changing jobs, changing lifestyles and changing relationships all at once, and I’ve been struggling hard to find meaning when things that once shaped my identity have become unimportant. Like … existentialist crisis-level struggling. And as I do for all my problems, I turned to running to find answers.

Unfortunately this time running just seemed to exacerbate the crisis: I’m training for my 6th marathon. A BQ is still deep in the future, so why do this marathon now when I’d rather be running fast, short races? What does the marathon mean? Why do I even care about the BQ? Why do I keep running marathons? What’s the point, especially when I feel like all I do is run?

If life were like the cover of a fitness magazine, we would always run alongside breathtaking mountains or into a tropical sunset (and we’d look really hot while doing it). The truth is we need to get our runs in when we can, which often requires running the same routes close to home or, worse, staring at our basement wall while we cram it in on the treadmill.

Yes, I’ve written about how much running means to me, how much it defines me, how much I love it! But lately, despite living in a place with amazing trails and a beautiful lakeshore, I’m bored. Here’s the problem. I have precisely one day a week when I can afford the time required to drive somewhere to run. The rest of the days it’s the treadmill or cul-de-sac. So, how am I supposed to keep the love affair alive when I’m pounding the same pavement day after day? Read more >>

While many of the other women who competed along side me last February at the Olympic Marathon Trials raced their first big races after L.A. this weekend, I did not. In fact, I don’t think I could race right now if someone paid me.

After every marathon, whether race day goes well or poorly, I end up in a slump. I excitedly stuff my face with every bakedcreationimaginable and that’s fun … for like a week. Then I start to feel like a waste of space. I feel so much more accomplished, centered, and fulfilled when I’m running.

I know that I need that time to recharge both physically and mentally, so I take it. I treat myself to indulgences I don’t get mid-season, like staying up late, sleeping in, and eating multiple doughnuts in one sitting. I am good at reminding myself this rest is just part of the racing cycle and post-race blues are totally normal.

While I anticipated my post-Trials emotional drop off a cliff with it being the most exciting race ever and all, but maybe because it didn’t hit me right away or maybe because it was immediately followed by the most depressing off-season, but I’m struggling in the slump swamp way more than I expected to. Read more >>

I started my running journey about five years ago. Back in the beginning, it seemed like every race was a huge PR. I shaved times off in massive chunks. I took 45 minutes off my half-marathon time from my first attempt to my second. The first two years of running was so full of success, that I started to take it for granted. I assumed that all I needed to do was continue to bank miles and I would just get faster and faster.

If you’ve been running for awhile, you know exactly what I’m talking about. We have these huge gains at the beginning and it’s so easy to take PRs for granted and just expect them to happen because we showed up at a race. After a while, though, we all hit a plateau. That’s exactly what happened to me this year. Read more >>

Feel like this when you’re running? You might have the plods. Image via wikipedia.

A few weeks ago I was feeling very low about my running. I had a major event, an “A” race, scheduled for the 25th October and I had absolutely no desire to put on my running shoes at all. In fact, if I was honest with myself, I had been going through the motions with my running programme for about two months up until that point, gritting my teeth and getting through the workouts by sheer willpower alone. And I was not getting through all of the workouts either. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Every workout, every race, every mile was suddenly a huge struggle. It was like a switch had gone off and I was DONE. In the words of Salty herself I had “jumped the shark.”

So, while Catnip was writing a post about staying motivated while pregnant and Salty was asking why we do this to ourselves, I was sitting around and considering the fact that I’ve had no motivation to run over the course of the last month. Or two. So I started to wonder what it takes to break out of a running rut. And then I started wondering if it really mattered whether or not you really break out. Stop throwing things at me and hear me out.

Have you ever taken a break from running? I’ve taken whole years off before. And when I came back I came back because I wanted to, not because I felt obligated to.

Here are five ways to break out of your running rut…or not. Read more >>

If I’m not reading for school, I’m probably reading a running book (or two). I think about running (over-think, probably) when I drive to work. I run five days a week (I’d run more if my body could handle it). I dream about running. I love to run.

Until recently.

Since my unfortunate fail at Winderemere Marathon, I haven’t had very many runs where I’ve finished feeling exhilarated. Almost none where I’ve felt like I could run forever. And now, the night before a run, I dread it.

Five miles feels like 26.2, and I think I ran faster a couple of marathons ago than I can run five miles right now. All of this would be okay, except that this is a critical time for my running: I’m supposed to be working on my running form and building a base before my next training cycle.

Instead, I’m in the midst of a running slump. And it sucks. Read more >>

If only getting through a running slump were as simple as drinking an energy drink. Image from deadspin.com

Slumps. We’ve all been there. Mentally. Physically. Slumps at work. Slumps in relationships. Slumps in mood. Why would running be any different. It is no fun being in a running slump. Whether it is a mental running slump or a plateau in performance, running slumps can be grueling. Running slumps can come in all shapes and sizes. Mini and mega.

I’ve started to notice a trend in my mega-running slumps, of which I’ve really only had two in my 15 years of running. The onset? Best year ever + layoff due to injury + attempting to comeback. I’ve heard a lot of fellow runners say things like “I had my best season ever after my injury!” Nope. That’s not me. But two mega-slumps in 15 years of running really isn’t too bad, right? Read more >>